Obama to ease Cuba travel restrictions

Elderly Cuban men line up to buy newspapers and magazines early in the morning on a street in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011.

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.  President Barack Obama plans to loosen Cuban travel policy to allow students and church groups to go to the communist country, the administration announced Friday.

Students seeking academic credit and churches traveling for religious purposes will be able to go to Cuba. The plan will also let any American send as much as $500 every three months to Cuban citizens who are not part of the Castro administration and are not members of the Communist Party.

Also, more airports will be allowed to offer charter service. Right now, only three airports — in Miami, Los Angeles and New York City — can offer authorized charters to Cuba. That will be expanded to any international airport with proper customs and immigration facilities as long as licensed travel agencies ask to run charters from the airport.

On Friday, one Florida airport was already taking steps to offer service to Cuba.

"This is great news from an international air service development standpoint," Tampa International Airport CEO Joe Lopano said in a news release. "We will begin meeting with air charter companies and working with the Federal Authorities to make sure we meet all requirements for these Cuba flights."

The White House press office sent out a release saying Obama had directed the changes, which do not need congressional approval. They will be put in place within two weeks.

Changes that Obama made last year already increased Cuban-Americans' ability to visit family and send money to relatives. The changes are similar to travel policies under President Bill Clinton. Critics said they will not improve the lives of Cubans.

"Loosening these regulations will not help foster a pro-democracy environment in Cuba. These changes will not aid in ushering in respect for human rights. And they certainly will not help the Cuban people free themselves from the tyranny that engulfs them," said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and the House Foreign Affairs Committee chair. "These changes undermine U.S. foreign policy and security objectives and will bring economic benefits to the Cuban regime."

Sen. Bill Nelson's office earlier confirmed the changes after the State Department briefed him, but Nelson was traveling and couldn't be reached for comment on the plans.

Pepe Hernandez, head of the moderate Cuban-American National Foundation, called the changes very positive, most importantly the decision to allow all Americans to send money to Cubans.

"It's going to help the interaction between regular Cubans and U.S. citizens, it's going to help Cuban people inside the island to gain independence from the Cuban government, especially now that roughly a million will be without jobs," he said, referring to Raul Castro's decision to reduce the government workforce.

Hernandez said the Cuban government would get some benefit from the remittances, but that he could live with that because Cuban citizens, particularly dissidents, would now have another source of support.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski, the top Catholic leader in South Florida, applauded the changes.

"The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops has worked tirelessly for years with White House representatives promoting greater contact between people of Cuba and the free world," Wenski said.

Several Cuban-Americans interviewed in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood said they had no problems with the changes.

"At the best, it's good for those students to see how bad it is," said Marta Bergasa, 60, a lab technician who was born in Cuba. "The problem is the students from there cannot come here."

Others don't think the changes will do any good. Maria Vazquez, owner of the Sentir Cubano memorabilia shop, said the change would not do anything to help democracy in Cuba.

"I'm totally against the idea," Vazquez said.

"I think what our country needs is freedom, not these little patches of students going to Cuba."